Hot Stuff

[JanetGroene]

What is your favorite way of adding heat to a recipe and in what form do you carry it? Full disclosure: I prefer heat that can be passed at the table, to be added to taste. Tabasco is sort of my all-around fall back but it's great fun to try hot sauces around the world. Has anyone found one they couldn't find anywhere else except in one nation or port and you go to great lengths to re-supply?

[bill352]

Here's one close by. I've only had the original, before they started with all the new products, but it was really good.

Gator Hammock - Gator Sauces

[GeoPowers]

Well, my absolute favorite way is a fresh pepper as a side to the dish. If I had to pick just one pepper, it would probably be a nice, dark green, rippled, cayenne pepper. But I like them all mostly. I'm not just about heat, but I do find that most hot peppers also have a great taste.

We also carry lots of hot sauce onboard, perhaps a disproportionate amount, but we all have our indulgences! In order of “must have” onboard:

Tabasco- for just about everything
Cholula- Perfect for breakfast foods and Mexican
Sriracha- great with soups, with crab cakes, deviled eggs, on sandwiches…
Texas Pete- The best with NC pork BBQ or country ham and eggs
Frank’s Red Hot Sauce- nice for wings and also for ground chicken (think hot-wing balls)
Habanero-Mango blends- for Caribbean dishes, and even seafood.

One of our dock neighbors makes her own hot sauce- soooo good!

Frank

[tamicatana]

I have round: Tabasco habanero, powdered cayenne, Indian chili powder, garam masala, sambal oelek, Sriracha, Pickapeppa, Tiger sauce

I will go out of the way to get "Slap Ya Mama" seasoning salt, the hotter one

[Jim Cate]

G'Day all,

It's good to see that there are other sailing chili junkies around! It has been interesting trying the local sauces and peppers as we have sailed through the Pacific islands. And every one that we have visited has some form or another (except New Zealand, where they think that mayonnaise is hot).

As for fresh stuff, here in Oz the supermarkets sometimes have locally grown Jalapenos on sale... but they often have all the kick of a green bell pepper. More commonly they seem to have the long tapered chilies, locally called Thai chilies, both red and green or ball chilies. Not a great selection nor great quality.

Oriental markets have bewildering arrays of bottled sauces and pastes, and these are pretty confusing if you don't read whatever language their labels are written in. I do a lot of Szcechwan (sp?) and Hunan style cooking, so I try to keep Hot Bean Paste and some form of small dried chilies on hand. Incidentally, I was trying to source some dried chilies in Vanuatu a while back, and bought a jar of tiny dried pods, local produce. Threw a few into the next dish... and had difficulty eating it! They were devastatingly hot. Still have them on board... probably need to file an EIS before using them again!

So, what have I got in the pantry now? Tabasco (grew up on it), some El Yucateco Habenero and Chipotle sauces, African Peri-Peri, several varieties of hot bean paste of indecipherable brand name, Thai sweet chili sauce, red and green, salsa verde in tins, ground chili powders (New Mexico, Pasilla, Ancho and Chipotle imported from the States), the above mentioned Vanuatu chilies, dried Hontakas, and likely some that I have forgotten about! Oh yeah, also premade curry pastes of several varieties, Indian and Thai, and dry Sri Lankan curry powder.

My Dad grew up in west Texas and used to say that if you were not sweating under your eyes, you weren't enjoying your meal! I guess it's hereditary...

Cheers,

Jim

[NornaBiron]

We like curry as much as the next person but obtaining the individual spices here in Greece is almost impossible. I tend to do a bulk order online just before one of us goes to the UK so that we can bring it back with us.

If I can find fresh chillies I preserve them in brandy, I'm still using some that I bottled last winter. The brandy becomes an ingredient in hotter dishes too towards the end of the jar.

On board at the moment we have: tabasco, all curry spices, chilli powder, cayenne, paprika (hot and sweet varieties) chillis in brandy and dried chillies. That just about covers all eventualities!

[micah719]

Mmmmmm, Indonesian chili sauce. Properly made, it burns three times...coming, going, and any poor swabs that wander into the fallout cloud without their NBC kit on.

[atoll]

WASABI!!!!!,i allways take some powdered wasabi on deliveries,that and soy sauce makes fresh tuna a delicacy.

i generally make up my own piri piri hot sauce, using 1/2 lb of chilli's,1 onion,whole bulb of garlic,chop ,then saute in 50-100 ml olive oil till chillis start to break up,add salt pepper,originum then add 1/2 cup of water simmer 20 mins and mash slightly....mildish! and very tasty

[CeesH]

My weekly job, Vietnamese hot sweet chili sauce and Indonisian Sambal Manis.

Vietnamese Hot Sweet Chili Sauce

3 large Garlic Toes
3 large Red Peppers, clean and remove the seeds
50 ml wine vinegar
100 ml Sugar
150 ml of water
½ teaspoon salt

1 tbsp Cornflour
2 tablespoon water

Everything in the blender. Except for the last two.

Make a paste of the last two.

Boil 3-5 minutes on a medium heat, then add the cornflour paste and cook for 1 minute more.

Indonesian Sambal Manis

300 grams Red Peppers, clean and remove the seeds
2 large onions
150 grams Palm Sugar or Cane
3 large Garlic Toes
1 teaspoon Curry Powder
1 teaspoon ginger powder or a piece of fresh ginger
1 tsp Cumin Powder
1 tsp Coriander Powder
dash of Soy Sauce


Everything in the blender, you end up with a fairly wet paste.

Now this paste on a high fire under continuously stirring in the wok and fry the chilli paste until the paste is reduced to the desired thickness.

Allow to cool and Sambal is ready.


You will love it.

CeesH

[Capetinho]

I have a warm spot in my heart (and other locations) for Pili-Pili, a product of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A little dab'll do ya!

[Weyalan]

I make my own sweet chilli sauce using whatever types of chillis I can get (mostly home grown).
Ingredients
1 kg chillis, roughly chopped
150g garlic, roughly chopped
100g ginger, roughly chopped
20g salt
1 litre vinegar
1 kg sugar

Method
Whiz dry ingredients in a blender (if you don't have access to a blender, just chop them finer to start with)
Put in large pot with the vinegar
Bring to the boil
Reduce heat to low simmer, add sugar
Simmer 1 hour
Bottle into pre-heated bottles, sealing immedidately to create vacuum seal. As long as the lids "pop down", this sauce will last, unrefrigerated, for a year or more (in theory... mine just seems to disappear)

You can adjust the hotness several ways. Using some capsicum (bell peppers) instead of some of the chillis gives a milder sauce. Leaving some of the seeds in the chillis will make the sauce hotter. Using milder (jalapeno) or hotter (habanero or thai birds eye) chillis as well. Traditionally, this sauce would be made using red chillis, but a mix of red and green actually works well too, giving a slightly different flavor.

Also, you can adjust the "balance" of the sauce by adjusting the ratio of vinegar to sugar... the 1 litre / 1 kg is a reasonable starting point... get to about half-way through the simmering stage and then add more vinegar or sugar to your own tastes.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Weyalan

I make my own sweet chilli sauce using whatever types of chillis I can get (mostly home grown).
Ingredients
1 kg chillis, roughly chopped
150g garlic, roughly chopped
100g ginger, roughly chopped
20g salt
1 litre vinegar
1 kg sugar

Method
Whiz dry ingredients in a blender (if you don't have access to a blender, just chop them finer to start with)
Put in large pot with the vinegar
Bring to the boil
Reduce heat to low simmer, add sugar
Simmer 1 hour
Bottle into pre-heated bottles, sealing immedidately to create vacuum seal. As long as the lids "pop down", this sauce will last, unrefrigerated, for a year or more (in theory... mine just seems to disappear)

You can adjust the hotness several ways. Using some capsicum (bell peppers) instead of some of the chillis gives a milder sauce. Leaving some of the seeds in the chillis will make the sauce hotter. Using milder (jalapeno) or hotter (habanero or thai birds eye) chillis as well. Traditionally, this sauce would be made using red chillis, but a mix of red and green actually works well too, giving a slightly different flavor.

Also, you can adjust the "balance" of the sauce by adjusting the ratio of vinegar to sugar... the 1 litre / 1 kg is a reasonable starting point... get to about half-way through the simmering stage and then add more vinegar or sugar to your own tastes.

I've got a bottle of Patrick's sauce on board right now and can recommend it highly... good stuff! And thanks, mate!

Cheers,

Jim

[Ziggy]

I haven't found anything I like better than Cholula.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Weyalan

I make my own sweet chilli sauce using whatever types of chillis I can get (mostly home grown).
Ingredients
1 kg chillis, roughly chopped
150g garlic, roughly chopped
100g ginger, roughly chopped
20g salt
1 litre vinegar
1 kg sugar

Method
Whiz dry ingredients in a blender (if you don't have access to a blender, just chop them finer to start with)
Put in large pot with the vinegar
Bring to the boil
Reduce heat to low simmer, add sugar
Simmer 1 hour
Bottle into pre-heated bottles, sealing immedidately to create vacuum seal. As long as the lids "pop down", this sauce will last, unrefrigerated, for a year or more (in theory... mine just seems to disappear)

You can adjust the hotness several ways. Using some capsicum (bell peppers) instead of some of the chillis gives a milder sauce. Leaving some of the seeds in the chillis will make the sauce hotter. Using milder (jalapeno) or hotter (habanero or thai birds eye) chillis as well. Traditionally, this sauce would be made using red chillis, but a mix of red and green actually works well too, giving a slightly different flavor.

Also, you can adjust the "balance" of the sauce by adjusting the ratio of vinegar to sugar... the 1 litre / 1 kg is a reasonable starting point... get to about half-way through the simmering stage and then add more vinegar or sugar to your own tastes.

will give it a try!
might want to include.....wear surgical gloves when chopping 1kg chilli's and don't touch face

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by atoll

will give it a try!
might want to include.....wear surgical gloves when chopping 1kg chilli's and don't touch face

Be sure to remove gloves before taking a whiz...

Cheers,

Jim